The Discarding of Nobility
by Hellsleprechaun
Summary: Elijah has rescued his siblings from the witches who took them but they're badly injured from the experience and Celeste is still out there. Rebekah and Klaus want to help their brother against the witch, Elijah wants to protect his siblings and Hayley would just like it if there were no more massacres.


**I do not own The Originals, it belongs to the CW.**

**This is set after Elijah rescues Klaus and Rebekah from the witches.**

Elijah found Rebekah first, she was crouched in the corner of the old hospital, her hair was tangled and her clothes were torn and bloodied. She was still disorientated when he approached her and she began to scream as he tried to take her hand. She became more agitated when he tried to carry her and began to scratch and slap at him.

"Rebekah, it's me." He informed her gently, doing his best not to frighten her.

His sister's confused eyes settled on his face and, after a long moment, clarity returned and he saw a flash of recognition.

"Lijah?" She whispered, her throat raw and dry, before throwing her arms around him and burying her face in his chest.

He hugged her back and looked her over, grimacing when he saw that her arms and shoulders were covered in bites that still had not healed. He tightened his grip on her.

"Come on, we need to find Niklaus. Do you know where he is?" He questioned her softly, keeping his arm around her.

"I… I don't know." She admitted quietly, stumbling along with him. He caught her as her legs collapsed beneath her and she passed out.

"Let me," Marcel requested, reaching out to carry the blonde vampire.

Elijah watched him with suspicion, he had never been particularly fond of Marcel and he was not certain that he approved of his relationship with his sister.

"Let me take her, and you find Klaus." Marcel suggested, looking at him imploringly until Elijah relented and carefully handed his sister over to the younger vampire.

"Take her straight back to the house, and if any harm should come to her…" he did not need to finish that threat.

"Even if I wanted to hurt Rebekah, do you really think I'd dare after what I just saw you do to those witches?" He asked with raised eyebrows.

Elijah did not smile, he watched as Marcel left with his sister and then began to search the hospital for his brother.

/

He was shocked by the sight of his brother when he saw him, dread building in his stomach.

Niklaus was not wearing a shirt, he had been strapped to an operating table and he was covered in open, sluggishly bleeding wounds.

"Niklaus." Was all Elijah could manage, reaching over and undoing the straps from around Klaus's wrists. "Niklaus." He repeated when he received no response. He took his brother by the shoulders and shook him as hard as he could without hurting him.

After what felt like an age, Klaus finally turned to glance at him, nodding once, before looking away again.

Elijah pulled his jacket off quickly and handed it to his brother, who shrugged it on silently, something that disturbed Elijah. It was unnatural for Klaus to not have said anything in these few minutes. A horrible thought occurred to the older man and he grabbed Klaus by the chin before opening his mouth. His tongue was still present, there was no mutilation, no blood, no sign of anything out of the ordinary. When Klaus did not question his manhandling of him, the knot in his stomach tightened.

He practically dragged his brother out of the hospital and into his car.

/

The following day Hayley watched from the doorway as Elijah sat with his siblings. They had been placed in the same room for convenience and Elijah had hardly left them since. Both Klaus and Rebekah were lying on the large double bed, breathing heavily and not speaking. Rebekah because she was sleeping, although if her tossing and turning was anything to go by, not very peacefully, and Klaus was just lying there silently. It was beginning to give her the creeps. She had only known the hybrid for a few months but those few months were long enough for her to have realised that if Klaus wasn't talking then something wasn't right, the guy loved the sound of his own voice.

Elijah was holding Rebekah's smaller hand in one of his and speaking softly to his brother, her ears weren't quite sensitive enough to hear what he was saying.

"Are you alright?" Elijah suddenly asked, louder. It took her a moment to realise that he was talking to her now rather than Klaus.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I brought you this," she said, stepping into the room with two mugs of blood. He accepted both off her with a grateful smile, taking a deep drink from one while placing the other down upon the table beside him.

"You look tired." She told him, not bothering to tell him he should get some sleep since he wouldn't listen anyway, not while Klaus and Rebekah were still hurt.

"I tried feeding Rebekah with Niklaus's blood again," he said, "she coughed most of it back out but I think more went down than last time." Despite this he did not sound optimistic.

"Niklaus, stop that." Elijah ordered without raising his voice.

Hayley looked over to Klaus. He was sitting up now and scratching at his chest, staring down at it with an expression of deep concentration etched across his face.

Elijah stood and moved to the other side of the bed. He grabbed Klaus's hand and pulled it back from where he had been clawing at himself. If it weren't for the fact that his brother had had his wrists bound by restraints just the previous day, he would have considered it just to make him stop scratching.

Hayley moved closer to Klaus and stared at his chest in morbid fascination, it was healing much slower than it should have been, the skin stitching itself back together almost lazily.

"Is he bleeding?" She asked with surprise, gesturing at Klaus's torso where there were multiple cuts.

Elijah glanced down and sighed, "it would appear so. They mostly healed yesterday but-"

"But not as quickly as they should have done." She guessed, and he nodded.

"What's wrong with him?" She demanded.

"If I knew that, I'd have done something about it," the original replied wearily.

Hayley was going to respond when she noticed that Klaus was scratching at his chest again and she took a closer look.

"What is that?"

"The wound? I don't know, he had it when I found him and I haven't been able to get a word out of him."

"Elijah, I think there's something in there."

She moved out of the way slightly, so that Elijah could get a better view.

"Hold him still." Elijah said suddenly and before she could protest he plunged his hand into his brother's chest.

If Hayley had been wishing for Klaus to start making noise again, she regretted it now. Klaus screamed and thrashed while Elijah was trying to rip out whatever was embedded in his chest. Klaus's loud howling woke Rebekah with a start and she sat up to be faced with the sight of Klaus in pain and bleeding with Elijah's hand in his chest.

"Stop! Stop it Elijah!" She cried, wrenching at his arm to try and remove it from the now gaping hole in Klaus's chest.

"He's just trying to help him, Rebekah." Hayley tried to assure the other woman.

"No! He's trying to kill him." She threw herself at Elijah and managed to knock him away from Klaus, who practically jumped away from him to the other side of the small room.

"Hayley, take Rebekah into another room and keep her there, Marcel will help you if you need it." Elijah commanded, getting up from where he had fallen slowly and walking towards Klaus with his hands up in a sign of surrender.

/

Once Hayley had managed to take Rebekah away, quietly promising her that he and Klaus were only going to talk, Elijah turned his full attention to his brother.

"I am only trying to help you, Niklaus," he reassured him, taking a small step closer to him.

"Stay away from me," Klaus snarled, the veins beginning to show beneath his skin and his eyes flashing yellow.

Despite the situation, Elijah felt a surge of relief that his brother was speaking again.

"You know that I would never do anything to hurt you, brother."

"That's a little hard to believe seeing as you just shoved your hand into my chest and had a rummage around." Klaus hissed, sounding much more like his old self.

"You're hurt. There's something in your chest and I need to get it out, it's stopping you from healing properly and I believe it's making you paranoid."

"When Silas staked me, I carved open my own back to try and get the stake out but that was all a lie, like this." Klaus grinned knowingly at him.

Elijah had no idea what his brother was referring to although he knew that Silas the ancient immortal had been real enough.

"I am not Silas and I am not trying to trick you, I just want to help you."

His brother smiled hesitantly and took one step towards him, and Elijah felt a flare of hope, before Klaus turned and ran from him with all the strength he had left.

Elijah was momentarily taken by surprise but he quickly pursued his brother and managed to pin him down within a few seconds.

"Elijah, please," Klaus begged, gazing up at his older brother with desperate, teary blue eyes. When that didn't work he kicked and shoved at Elijah to try and loosen his tight grip around his arm. "Let me go, Elijah!" He cried furiously.

Fortunately for Elijah, his escape attempt had weakened Niklaus and he was unable to put up much of a fight when Elijah pushed him back onto the bed he had been sharing with their sister.

"Niklaus, I need you to trust me, I promise that I will do this as quickly as I am able and that it will help you to heal." He spoke quietly, keeping his hand wrapped around his brother's arm and attempting to meet his eyes. Klaus started determinedly down at the floor for a long few minutes before glancing up at Elijah and nodding once.

It was not easy, Niklaus began to scream again when the pain got too much and he desperately tried to get away from his brother, who held on to him tightly.

Finally, Elijah grabbed hold of what felt like the handle of a knife and ripped it from Klaus's chest, causing a fountain of blood to pour from the wound left behind.

The last of Klaus's energy left him and Elijah supported his body as he slumped against him. He reached for the mug of blood Hayley had brought earlier and held it to his brother's mouth, slowly feeding him sips of it while murmuring words of encouragement.

/

When Rebekah woke she found that she was in one of the many beds in their large house, although it was not her own. She lifted her head slowly and felt only a slight ache rather than the blinding pain she had felt over the last few days. Niklaus was lying on the other side of the bed asleep and snoring quietly, she rolled her eyes, she found it hard to believe that he still did that.

"Are you feeling better?" Elijah spoke from a chair beside the bed, watching her over his newspaper.

"Much, I don't want to tear off my own skin anymore and it doesn't feel as though my brain is trying to crawl out of my ear."

"You certainly know how to paint a beautiful picture, sister." Nik muttered from his side of the bed, where he had pulled the covers over his head.

"I see you're still a morning person, Niklaus." Elijah commented with a raised eyebrow.

"Absolutely," came the muffled reply, causing Rebekah to laugh.

"What happened?" Elijah finally asked, after a long pause.

"We could ask you the same question," Klaus pointed out, pulling the covers off his head and sitting up.

"I came across Celeste and she told me I would only be able to save one of you-"

"So you saved neither of us?" Klaus cut him off, looking rather unimpressed.

Elijah glared at him, "she gave me the choice of saving you, Rebekah or Hayley and I saved Hayley."

He was surprised to see the expressions that crossed both of his siblings' faces. Although it was much more apparent on his sister, there was no mistaking the hurt look that crossed both their faces.

"I did not save Hayley because I valued her life over either of your's," he explained, feeling as though that should have been obvious, "I saved her because she carries your child, Niklaus, and your niece, Rebekah. I thought that you would both want that."

"We do," Rebekah informed him, "we're just glad to know that you didn't abandon us in favour of the little wolf."

His sister grinned at him and he nodded, "back to my question, what happened?"

"I was in the woods with Oliver-"

"Who's Oliver?" Klaus interrupted suspiciously.

"Stop butting in to other people's stories, Nik." She snapped at him, although there was no real venom behind it.

Elijah was also curious as to who this _Oliver _was but decided that that was not the most important issue at the current time.

"Then I got surrounded by werewolves and they attacked me. I killed some of the furry bastards but there were too many of them. I don't remember much of what happened after that. We were in that horrible old hospital for a while, I could hear Nik screaming in other rooms and I tried to find him but I could never tell where it was coming from so I was just wandering around by myself." She had faltered for a moment but carried on talking when Klaus took her hand in his.

"I was in the quarter with Monique Devereux. I told the witches that if they gave me Celeste I'd let her go and if not I'd kill her." Klaus explained unabashedly.

"Of course you did." Elijah sighed.

"Then Marcel turned up and insisted upon getting involved,"

"Of course he did."

"Then Sophie Devereux stabbed me in the heart with that knife and it got stuck in my chest. I only remember waking up in the hospital after that and then you coming for me."

"Are they all dead?" Rebekah voiced both her own and Klaus's thoughts.

"All except one." Elijah answered honestly, frustrated with himself.

"All?"

Elijah thought of all the witches he had killed in the quarter the night he discovered his last remaining siblings were missing. Most of them he had killed just to show those remaining what would happen to them if they refused to cooperate with him. Some foolish ones had still refused after that and he had had to make examples of them too. Those who were left after that had been less foolish and had helped him find where Niklaus and Rebekah were being kept. He had allowed those few witches to live for their assistance.

When he, Marcel and the other vampires had arrived at the hospital he had ordered them to kill every witch they found. He was aware now, although he had not been at the time, of how brutally he had killed some of them: throats torn out, heads severed, torsos slashed and organs removed, he had realised afterwards that the vampires who had not been afraid of him before, knew to be so now.

"I spared the few that helped me find you," he stated coolly.

"But Celeste is still out there?" His brother guessed.

"Yes but not for long."

"What are we going to do?" Rebekah wondered, sitting up straighter and paying her brother close attention.

"_We _arenot going to do anything. I am going after Celeste and the two of you will stay here until you have recovered fully." He told them in a voice that others would have accepted as leaving no room for argument, his siblings, however, loved a challenge.

"We aren't children any more, Elijah, you can't simply command us to stay at home while you go out and have all the fun." Klaus grinned teasingly.

"I am fully recovered!" Rebekah insisted at the same time.

Elijah did not bother to muster up a response, he knew from experience it was best to allow them to get all of their arguments out of the way before replying.

"I had her killed once, I can do it again."

"You can't go after her alone, it's too dangerous."

He sat through at least fifteen minutes of such protests before his siblings finally stopped protesting. "I've already made up my mind. I will be going alone and the two of you are to stay here."

"Out of curiosity, brother, how are you planning on forcing us to remain here?"

"After what the vampires saw me do to any witch unfortunate enough to get in my way, I had absolutely no problems convincing them that I would be… unhappy if I were to discover that either of you had been allowed out of this house while Celeste was still living."

Elijah said goodbye to his siblings, kissing Rebekah on the head and, much to his surprise, doing the same to Niklaus.

"I can't believe that the first time either of us has been grounded was past the one thousand years old mark." Rebekah said incredulously.

"Just to be clear, you weren't actually planning on staying here were you, sister?" Nik inquired.

"Of course not, don't be ridiculous."

"I thought as much."

/

"What are you two doing?" Hayley asked, as she walked into the room Klaus and Rebekah were staying in.

Both were out of the bed and Rebekah was fully dressed while Klaus was still attempting to pull his shirt over his head, grimacing in pain the whole time.

"We're not going to let Elijah go after Celeste alone." Rebekah stated simply.

"You realise he's basically got the two of you under house arrest, don't you?"

"We know, love, we just don't care." Klaus informed her, still working on getting the shirt over his head.

Rebekah sighed in exasperation and helped her brother finally put the shirt on properly.

"You can't go," she protested, "Rebekah you still look like you're gonna drop dead any second and Klaus you can't even put a shirt on without help, what are you two planning to do against Celeste?"

"No matter what state me and Nik are in, three is better than one. We're not just going to leave our brother to fight against her alone." Rebekah insisted.

"What about the vampires here?"

"You may have noticed that they're not exactly the sharpest tools in the drawer, I don't think we'll have too much trouble slipping past their keen senses." Klaus informed her with a smirk.

"That's not what I meant. If Elijah finds out you two got out and they didn't stop you, he'll kill them."

"Not if our plan works." Klaus insisted.

"I'm really not sure that'll be enough to stop him," after seeing Elijah's reaction to their abduction, Hayley was doubtful that their plan working would be enough to stop Elijah ripping through the vampires of the quarter for breaking his rules where his siblings were concerned. Her doubt must have shown on her face because Rebekah tried to reassure her.

"We can talk him around. He won't do anything to upset us when we're so _terribly sick_." She faked a weak cough.

"Is there literally anything I can do to stop you?" The werewolf wondered.

"No. Don't worry, we won't tell Elijah you were involved." Rebekah assured her with a grin.

/

Elijah walked through the quarter at a leisurely pace, he did not want Celeste to think he was afraid when she found him, he would not have anybody see such weakness in him.

He kept all of his senses on sharp and alert, although to anyone watching him he would have appeared as relaxed as if he were browsing his way through his local library.

"Elijah." A smooth voice greeted from behind him.

He turned to see the witch standing behind him, a grin plastered across her face.

"Celeste," he returned.

"I can only imagine you're delighted to see me." She almost sounded amused, "you killed most of the witches in the quarter and all at the hospital, I know that, but do you really think you'll be able to kill me as easily?"

"I can only hope so," he replied lightly, giving her a brief smile.

"I didn't want to have to kill you, Elijah, I just wanted you to see the error of your ways."

"By kidnapping and torturing my siblings?" He felt his stoic façade slip slightly as anger tried to break its way into his voice.

"Your precious brother threw me and countless other witches under the bus to save his own skin," she reminded him furiously.

"I am fully aware of what Niklaus has done."

"But you didn't see fit to make him pay for it." She stated, bitterness and betrayal dripping from every word.

"Whatever my brother has done in the past, that does not mean that I would tolerate what you did to him, or to my sister."

"You always did put them first, I was always the last priority behind your abomination of a brother and your _pathetic _sister."

"You know, Celeste, if you had left Niklaus and Rebekah alone, I would have forgiven your not telling me you were alive, I would have even forgiven all of your _plots_."

"But you could never forgive me for hurting them?" She spat contemptuously, before beginning to mutter a spell at him.

Elijah grunted as he felt a pain building in his head, at first it was a dull ache but it quickly intensified until he thought that one of his eyes might explode.

He leapt at the witch and wrapped his hands around her slim throat tightly, squeezing, preventing her from completing her curse. She gasped for breathe desperately and her skin began to turn an unhealthy colour before she managed to throw him off her and half way down the street with a silent spell.

He jumped back up quickly, as she massaged her already bruising neck. He threw himself at her suddenly, sending her crashing to the ground and knocking the breath from her.

She regained her breath quickly and began to chant at him again. He howled as he felt the bones in his legs snapping, and he fell down hard, falling to his hands and knees. He screamed again as he felt more bones breaking and what felt like tendons ripping inside him.

"You know, all I ever wanted was for you to love me."

"I did," he growled at her, "but you deceived me about your return and you tried to destroy my family."

"That's all that's ever mattered to you, isn't it? You don't care how uncaring or vile your brother is, or how needy and flighty your sister, all you care about is being able to cling on to them and tell yourself that they're still the same people they were a thousand years ago. You're pathetic, Elijah," she snarled, leaning in close to him.

She gasped in shock and pain as he plunged the knife into her chest, and they both watched as it buried itself deeper in her body until it pierced her heart.

She clutched her chest and for a few seconds fervently tried to claw the knife back out but it was not long before her hands began to slow and her movements became weaker. She collapsed fully to the ground and her skin began to grey and desiccate as the dagger did its work.

Elijah sighed heavily and closed the witch's eyes gently, he would make sure to handle her remains properly this time, she would not be coming back again.

/

Elijah arrived back at the house several hours later, after having dealt with Celeste's body.

"Elijah!" Hayley exclaimed happily, running towards him and pulling him into a hug. "You're alright."

"I'm fine, thank you, Hayley."

She pulled away and they smiled at one another for a few seconds before Elijah broke eye contact and coughed awkwardly. "How are Niklaus and Rebekah?"

Her face fell and her eyes flickered from the doorway behind him back to his face.

"They came after me." It was not a question.

"I'm sorry, Elijah, I couldn't stop them."

"I don't blame you, they can be… stubborn when they want to be. I suppose I will have to go and search for them before they manage to injure themselves further."

/

"We've been wandering around for hours! How are we going to find Elijah, it feels like we've searched the whole Quarter." Rebekah complained.

"I don't know, Rebekah."

"So you have no idea what to do?"

"I haven't noticed you coming up with any helpful solutions. I'm the one who suggested we go and see the witches."

"Yes, and they wouldn't help us because you kidnapped one of their teenagers and threatened her life less than a week ago- what a brilliant plan that was!"

"Like you've never threatened anybody's life at an inopportune time. How long did your obsession with the doppelganger last?"

"I could say the same."

"Well-"

"Are you two quite done with your bickering or should I leave you to it for a while longer?" A voice sounded from behind them.

They whirled around to see Elijah standing behind them calmly, looking mildly amused by his sibling's antics.

"So you're still alive then." Klaus stated with a small smile.

"Indeed. Although it does cause me some concern that neither of you seemed to think I would be."

"Nonsense, we had complete faith in you," Klaus lied easily.

"Which is why both of you left the house after I specifically told you not to and tried to follow me to join my confrontation with Celeste?"

"You can hardly complain that we didn't want you to face her alone and get killed."

"So you thought it would be a good idea to follow me while injured to face her so that we could all be killed?" Elijah demanded angrily, never raising his voice.

"We weren't going to let you go after her alone." Rebekah told him forcefully.

"You're both hurt, you would have been no help in a fight, if anything you'd have been a liability because I'd be worrying about you both. Sometimes your foolishness astounds me."

"And sometimes I feel like we just can't win with you, Elijah. You preach about family, how we should all help and support one another but when we try to help you get angry with us and tell us we shouldn't have done." Rebekah argued, sounding hurt by his words.

"Can you imagine how I felt when I realised that both of you were gone? When I realised that my only surviving siblings had been taken from me? Can you blame me for not wanting you both to get killed just days after I got you back because you had not recovered from your injuries yet?" He questioned furiously.

Rebekah's attitude towards her brother softened and she sighed, "we're family, Elijah. You can't just tell me and Nik that we can't get involved in your fights when you would insist upon getting involved in ours. If it had been you who was taken would you have just stayed at home while Nik or I faced Celeste alone? No, you wouldn't have done, so don't expect us to either."

She approached her brother and hugged him tightly, "we have to look after each other- all of us. You don't get to dictate what's best for Niklaus and I."

Elijah did not agree with that statement but returned her hug anyway, relieved that both she and his brother were unharmed by their leaving the house.

"Nik." Rebekah called, beckoning him over to where they were standing.

"Do I have to?" The hybrid questioned, not enjoying the thought of what it would do to his reputation to be seen in a group hug with his siblings.

Rebekah rolled her eyes, "yes, now come here."

Klaus reluctantly joined their hug, refusing to acknowledge that it felt nice to be close to his brother and sister like this, as he had not been in years.

/

Three weeks later, Elijah was still greeted by the sight of terrified vampires in the hallways of the building. He had had a… discussion with the vampires he had left in charge of watching his siblings when they returned that night and, needless to say, all of them and the other vampires were now living in fear of the thought of ever displeasing Elijah. He did not enjoy being a tyrant, however he acknowledged that other vampires being afraid of him could only work in his favour next time his siblings were hurt and he needed them protected.

**The end.**

**Wow, this was longer than expected!**

**This was my first time writing Hayley so I'm not quite sure how that went but I tried to keep her in character.**

**Elijah was less noble than usual in this fic but I think that with his siblings missing, Elijah will throw noble out the window.**

**I didn't mean for Klaus and Rebekah to come off as useless however I felt like Elijah had to face Celeste alone but I couldn't imagine Klaus and Rebekah just deciding to stay at home and relax while Elijah was in danger so I had them go looking for him unsuccessfully.**

**Also, if anyone's wondering why they were behaving so strangely at the beginning, the werewolf venom was confusion Rebekah and the dagger was having strange effects on Klaus which is why he was convinced Elijah was trying to trick him like Silas had.**

**Please review.**


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